Jane Austen Makes Like FedEx
…she delivers for PBS.
Masterpiece Whatchamacallit reports that its ratings for the Jane Austen season are up FIFTY PERCENT over last season.
We repeat: FIFTY PERCENT! A fifty percent gain in ratings! We complain about the quality of these productions, Gentle Readers, but we all watched them, didn’t we? Talk about hoist by our own petard. We hope that the folks involved don’t forget that better quality productions would have received just as high ratings, and probably even higher. Just saying.
In other Jane Austen TV movie news, the release date of the Region 2 DVDs of Lost in Austen has been moved back to October 6, so it seems likely that the series won’t be aired in the spring after all. Got another dog on your hands, ITV? Don’t say we didn’t tell you so.
April 11th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
But the region 2 DVD of Miss Austen Regrets whose date had been moved forward has been moved back and I was informed today of the estimated arrival date: 01/05/08 - 09/05/08
I’m so looking forward to it.
April 11th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Holy moly! I guess that means they don’t know when they’re showing it. Too bad. It’s actually halfway decent.
April 11th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Daaaamn, gangster. Go Jane!
April 11th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Yay, Jane!
My mother has been watching Masterpiece Theatre for the last couple of months. She doesn’t normally watch (as in ever), and only has a vague understanding of who Jane Austen is—sadly, her introduction to Jane came when I took her to see Becoming Jane while we were on vacation together. Yes, I know, bad me. She called me a couple of weeks ago to tell me that she saw a movie on PBS that I might enjoy called Emma. LOL You don’t say!
As much as I enjoy Jane, though, I really wish they would adapt other 19th century novels such as Mary Barton, Miss Majoribanks, or some of the lesser known Bronte novels. I can go on and on!
April 11th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Victoria, if you like Mrs. Gaskell’s novels be sure to see the adaptations of North & South, Wives & Daughters, and Cranford. They’re all BBC productions and all very well done. Sandy Welch did the screenplay for N&S, Andrew Davies handled W&D quite nicely, and Heidi Thomas adapted the Cranford stories. There are, of course, some differences from the novels, but Janeites will 1) gnash their teeth at seeing how it could and should be done and 2) wallow in the gloriousness of how it is done.
April 12th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Sandra — saw Gaskell’s “North & South” several months ago and was gobsmacked. Absolutely marvelous. I’m puzzled why it hasn’t been shown in the U.S..
April 13th, 2008 at 1:02 am
“North and South” was shown in the U.S. some years ago, but on BBC America and not PBS - which is a damned shame since it’s really good and more homes get PBS than BBC America. For instance, I get THREE public t.v. stations - WNET, WNJN and WLIW - but not BBC America. The only reason I’ve seen N&S is because I happened to find the DVD in a store and bought it sight unseen because I loved the novel.
April 13th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
BBC America did show N&S, but an edited version. The DVD, however, is the complete film. It ranks as one of my favorite adaptations– ever.
It’ll be interesting to see if PBS’ increased ratings hold up through the rest of the season, or whether the jump was Jane-related.
April 13th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I checked “North and South” out of the library and loved it. I had read the discussion that Austenbloggers had a short while ago and I listened to the commentary on the DVD where they discussed how things differed from the novel. All of which inspired me to read the book, which the library does not have…go figure!
April 14th, 2008 at 12:12 am
You can read the book on line here. That’s where I read it.
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/ecgns10.txt
The people at C19 have each taken turns reading all the chapters in the book and have placed it on the web in audio format.
http://www.archive.org/details/north_and_south_0709_librivox
April 14th, 2008 at 7:12 am
For Maria L. (#8)
While it’s true that BBC America did edit N&S for the broadcast, I doubt it would have been shown unedited on PBS, as we have seen this season with the Jane Austen adaptations.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Maisy, I agree. But it’s not just Austen they are chopping, Room With a View last night was cut as well.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Maria, what did they cut? I was surprised that Lucy and Charlotte never changed rooms with the Emersons. Did the uncut version show the switch?
April 14th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Karen, they do change rooms. You see a shot of Lucy waking up and opening her window to a view of the Arno.
Most of the cuts that I can remember are censorship cuts. And I don’t know yet whether it was our local PBS station or across the board. There is a scene where Lucy sees Mr. Beebe “talking” to some young men in the street that implies he is out to “score” so to speak. The pond scene was cut and the guys’ behinds were blurred to spare our delicate eyes. The requisite Davies sex scene was also cut, I suppose because you can see a glimpse of boob while they are snogging away.
Don’t get me wrong, I really do not like this lifeless, gloomy version that blitheley does away with Forster’s intent for his characters. (And the scene at the end of the Merchant/Ivory production where Helena Bonham Carter is melting hopelessly under Julian Sands’ kisses is infinitely sexier than last night’s version.) But if I’m going to hate something, I would like to hate it in its entirety uncut and uncensored.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:13 am
SUTH! (the Arno)
DH and I had a good laugh at the fuzzing of the derrieres - as if we hadn’t just seen all those breasts, buttocks and other Davidian delights on the Florentine statues. Save us from moving buttocks!!!
April 14th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Ugh!! I turned off _Room_ just at the point where 1922 Lucy starts having a picnic with the Italian guy. Could. Not. Stand. It. Any. More.
And I thought the 2008 Mansfield Park was bad…this production far and away beat it.
April 14th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
You missed about 90 seconds. Why is it that in all the awful pieces I’m finding Laurence Fox to be the most interesting presence on the screen?
April 15th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I watched. But will I buy the DVDs? Certainly not!
April 15th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
@ Ana:
When you say “North and South” was shown in the U.S. some years ago, … you probably confuse the 2004 BBC miniseries after the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell with the 1885 US series by the same name about the Civil War with Patrick Swayze.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Sylvia, North and South, the Gaskell version, was shown in the US on BBC America. There’s no way one could confuse Patrick Swayze and Richard Armitage.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:08 am
If you haven’t seen “Miss Austen Regrets,” some enterprising Austenites have loaded the entire thing to YouTube. And, if you have the latest (free!) edition of RealPlayer, you can download the entire thing to your own computer. The same enterprising Austenites have also loaded a whole slew of other things to YouTube. They’re worth looking for.
And this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRTk0RPXtW4) shows you how to download videos without going through your RealPlayer.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Please do not use the name of Richard Armitage in any post. It causes me to drool uncontrollably for lengthy periods of time and to stalk anyone with a Manchester accent. Alas, my doctor says this is incurable.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Maria, may I say Sean Bean? Not Manchester but still North, nevertheless, …lass.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:25 am
If you must. I will try to be strong.